


where do we go when we go

by endofadream



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Depressed Steve Rogers, Introspection, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Suicidal Thoughts, but very briefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 15:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17852690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofadream/pseuds/endofadream
Summary: He lets himself cry, just like he has every day since the fight.





	where do we go when we go

**Author's Note:**

> that recent infinity war trailer ruined me.
> 
> title is from "where do we go when we go" by neck deep, aka the whole inspiration behind this.

Sometimes, on the darkest days, Steve wonders if this is how Bucky felt after HYDRA, in the interim before fully integrating back into civilian life. Wandering around the world lost, missing something integral to his being. Never being sure where you needed to be, or if you should even be  _ here _ .

A husk—that’s the best way Steve can think to describe it. Shelled-out and discarded to shrivel up.

This permeating numbness, taking over every single part of him. A heavy feeling that pins him to the bed in the mornings, keeping him staring at the ceiling while the rest of him feels like it’s wasting away.

He’d tried, at first. With the whole world in chaos after the snap, Steve had returned home with the remaining Avengers to try and calm the frantic public. If there was one thing Steve could do-- _ anything _ to keep from watching Bucky dissolve over and over every time he closed his eyes--it was this.

Too quickly, though, it became apparent that platitudes and PSAs and press conferences couldn’t undo the damage. The backlash hadn’t helped--the small but vocal sect of the public who blamed the Avengers for not stopping Thanos were at every event armed with signs and megaphones.

They tried so hard, but now even Steve is beginning to doubt that.

Most nights he’s not sure if he even sleeps; time stretches on, leaving him unaware when it turns into the first milky stirrings of morning. It’s something he’s grown used to since returning, and maybe in the past he would have dwelled on how dangerous that is.

Then again, in the past he had more to keep living for.

Steve rolls over to the empty side of the bed and sees Bucky’s face, the first time he’d visited Wakanda after Shuri had let him know that Bucky was awake. He sees the warm Wakandan light spilling over the bed in Bucky’s hut, the little smirk at the corner of Bucky’s mouth as he’d caught Steve’s eye and turned away, inviting Steve to follow.

Steve rolls onto his back, closing his eyes, and sees Bucky in the clearing, shocked and confused and scared. Dissipating before Steve’s eyes, lost to the wind, and Jesus,  _ this is worse than hearing his screams echo in the gorge because there isn’t time for it to process before he’s just  _ gone—

He digs the heels of his palms into the hollows of his eyes, starbursts flashing in the darkness, and grits his teeth hard enough that his jaw begins to ache. Tears seep past his palms to trickle hot down his temples, and he lets them.

He lets himself cry, just like he has every day since the fight.

Steve’s heart beats, but it doesn’t work, at least not right. Like a broken clock can still tick while unable to tell the time, mechanical in its movement but serving no purpose. It’s there, a steady  _ thump-thump-thump _ in his chest, but where it should be, where Steve put all of himself, all of his pride and passion and love, is hollow.

Steve places a hand over it now, fingers curling against his shirt. He tries not to imagine how Bucky’s hand felt in that same position, or how many times Steve had mirrored it, covering it with his own.

When he tries to draw in a deep breath a series of staccato gasps escape instead. Those breaths turn into sobs.

He can’t stop himself from wishing that, just once, the serum would fail him.

Just once, he wishes he could die.

The sunlight stretches slowly into the room, almost like it’s reluctant. Fleeting, like the brush of a curious but wary animal’s fur between your fingers. Steve doesn’t blame it. He wouldn’t want to come into this room either, not with despair covering every surface like dust, something stale that chokes you the moment to walk in.

Captain America, wallowing in sadness. A leader broken down, again, and left on his own. A corner of Steve’s mouth twitches into a faint resemblance of a sardonic smile in between uneven breaths. If only they could see their hero now.

What’s funny is the whole universe is mourning; everyone has lost someone, friend or family. There is not one single person left who has not experienced the void that comes with death. Since then the entire world has shuttered, streets quiet, people followed by their grief like it’s a tangible presence.

Steve is the man out of time: he’s already lost everybody once so his grief isn’t special, not really.

_ Except it is  _ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Sam says. The thought makes him flinch violently because, unlike with Bucky, he hadn’t  _ been there _ when it happened. As far as he knows no one had been there when Sam had... _ disappeared _ .

He can’t think  _ death _ , not with Sam, not with Bucky. They’re gone; it’s the only thing Steve can bring himself to accept.

There has to be a cap, a point where it all plateaus out or peters off. Right? The guilt, and the grief, those sharp teeth that continue to gnaw at him down to the bone. Bucky’s smile, and Sam’s laugh, and the empty space left in him in their absence.

Surely there’s a point where it ends before it consumes Steve whole, leaving nothing but a shadow in its wake. He was born with a losing hand, so why does he keep surviving?

On the nightstand his phone rings, but Steve makes no move to answer it.

He had been so foolish to think that this, that  _ anything _ , could work. All it had taken was one genuine smile from Bucky, so reminiscent of the days before the draft notice appeared in their letterbox, for Steve to be that lovesick boy all over again.

Seeing him again in Wakanda, longer hair and still minus the arm, but whole in ways he hadn’t been since Brooklyn...it made Steve’s stomach flip in all the ways he’d forgotten about. Bucky’s eyes had been brighter, and he’d kissed Steve breathless the moment he’d stepped off the quinjet, the crowd around them be damned.

So Steve asked, late one night with the sticky Wakandan air listless in the hut. They were both breathless and sweaty, Steve sore in the best ways, and he  _ asked _ , like the fool he’s always been, “When this is all over...Buck, will you marry me?”

Like they had ever been guaranteed an  _ after _ . From the moment they’d met they had been doomed: by life, by society, by their own fates.

A chime indicates he has a voicemail.

Bucky, naked and glowing with sweat and sunshine on top of the rumpled blankets, beaming at Steve and saying, languid and New York-thick, “Why the hell are you  _ askin’ _ when you know the answer?”

So  _ foolish _ .

“You know I gotta--”

“Shut  _ up _ , you mook,” Bucky interrupted, and Steve made a big show of snapping his jaw shut. When Bucky shook his head hair fell down over his forehead, and Steve reached up to tuck it behind Bucky’s ear. The pink tinge to Bucky’s cheeks only made Steve’s heart beat faster.

“You know I’d go to the ends of the earth for you,” Bucky whispered, rolling onto Steve and cupping his cheek with his hand. He pressed a long, gentle kiss to Steve’s lips, brushing their noses together when he pulled away. “Christ, Steve, I’m so in love with you.  _ Of course _ I’ll marry you.”

Steve laughed, so giddy with love that he couldn’t contain it, so grateful to wake up in a time when he could ask his fella those questions and be able to do something about it. “‘Til the end of the line, right?”

Bucky, splaying his palm across the breadth of Steve’s chest, smiling that 1940s smile. “‘Til the very end.”

The white ceiling offers little consolation, so Steve closes his eyes. At least there, in the dark, he can see the sharp gray of Bucky’s again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is [here](http://endofadream.tumblr.com) and instagram is [here](http://instagram.com/wintersoldiered) if you’re into that sorta thing!
> 
> reviews are always lovely because i love talking about my works!


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